The Birth Of Israel
Background
• World War II ends in 1945
• Old empires are crumbling (French, British)
1947
• Britain pulls out of the British
Mandate
• The UN General Assembly
approved the 1947 UN Partition
Plan dividing the territory into two
states, with the Jewish area
consisting of roughly 55% of the
land, and the Arab area consisting
of roughly 45%.
• Israeli leader David Ben-Gurion
cautiously accepted the plan while
the Arab League rejected it
sparking the beginnings of the
Arab – Israeli War
1948
• The State of Israel was established on May 14, 1948
• Following Israel’s establishment, the armies of
Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon declared
war on Israel
• The creation of the Israeli state forced many
Palestinians to flee and created a massive influx of
Jewish settlers into Israel
• The war ends the same year it is started and the
armistice agreements between Israel and its Arab
neighbors results in the division of the former
British mandate into Israel, the Gaza strip held by
Egypt and the West Bank held by Jordan.
Trouble Brews Once Again
• In May of1967 Syria, Jordan, and Egypt had been hinting at war
• Egypt expelled UN Peacekeeping Forces from the Gaza Strip,
violating prior peace treaties and began an arms build up along the
Israeli-Egyptian border
• Israel deemed it necessary to preemptively attack Egypt on June 5
1967
• The ensuing war would become known as the Six-Days War between
Israel and its Arab neighbors
• Israel defeated the armies of three large Arab states
• Territorially, Israel conquered the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai
Peninsula, and Golan Heights. This is the source of much of the
conflict in the region.
• The Sinai was later returned to Egypt following the signing of a peace
treaty in the 1970’s.
Territory gained in the Six Days War
Present Day Israel/Palestine
War of Attrition
• Period from 1968 to 1972 known as the War
of Attrition
• Culminates in at the 1972 Munich Olympic
Games, when Palestinian militants held hostage
and killed members of the Israeli Olympic
Team.
• Israel responded with Operation Wrath of
God, in which agents of Mossad assassinated
most of those who were involved in the
massacre.
• Eternalized in Steven Spielberg's film Munich
• Munich Trailer
Peace on the Horizon?
• 1977- Egypt becomes the first Arab nation
to recognize Israel as a sovereign state
• In March 1979, Israeli Prime Minister Begin
and Egyptian leader Sadat sign the IsraelEgypt Peace Treaty in Washington, DC.
• The Gulf War of 1991 prompted the
signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993
List of Terror Attacks
• http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/terrorism/t
errisrael-1.html
• http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/terrorism/t
errisrael-2.html
Not Yet . . .
• The Israel-Palestine conflict continues to be
a source of major controversy
• Many Arabic countries see Israel as a
colony of the West on sacred Arabian soil
• Terrorist attacks are still a problem all over
the region